Like Cats and Dogs by Kate McMurray (scary books to read TXT) 📗

the ballroom had surprised Caleb, even though it shouldn’t have. He should really face facts that he was developing feelings for this woman.

So he’d swept in there to get her attention and prevent her from going out with that guy, who could have been perfectly nice. And it would have been within her rights to go out with him, because it wasn’t like she had any kind of commitment to Caleb. And yet.

“Well, now what?” she asked when they were outside.

“Uh, well. You want to get a drink?”

Lauren scrunched up her nose, clearly displeased with that suggestion. “Can we just walk for a bit? Get out of the Times Square area?”

“All right. Lead the way.”

Caleb still didn’t know the city well, but he recognized they were walking east, toward Sixth Avenue. It wasn’t very late, only just after eight o’clock, but once they were outside of the Times Square bubble, the streets were fairly empty, the office workers all gone home.

“Did you have dinner?” Lauren asked.

“Yeah, I ate with Jenny before the presentation.”

“This Jenny. Is she—”

“Happily married to a high school math teacher. We’re just old friends.”

“Not that it’s any of my business.”

Caleb didn’t want to pursue that. Likely the thought process in Lauren’s head was similar to the one he’d just worked through. “Did you eat?”

“Yeah, I had a sandwich before I came here. I could use a snack or something, though.” She looked around. “Oh, it’s one of those frozen yogurt places that has a zillion flavors. Let’s go there.”

Caleb laughed. “Okay.”

“Unless you don’t like frozen yogurt.”

“Who doesn’t like frozen yogurt?”

“Monsters. All right, let’s go.”

The yogurt place was self-serve, with twenty-one flavors to choose from and an extensive toppings bar. Caleb looked at all the options, sampled a few, and settled on a bit of strawberry and a bit of vanilla yogurt, with fresh berries on top. When he convened with Lauren at the checkout, she had a cup with at least five different flavors and a flurry of toppings: crushed cookies, chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles, marshmallows, and a dab of whipped cream.

“That’s some sundae you’ve got there,” Caleb said.

Lauren peered into his cup. “Fresh fruit? Do you know how to let loose at all?”

“Just put your cup on the counter.” He pulled out his wallet. “Dessert’s on me.”

“All right.”

“You’re not going to fight me? Protest that this isn’t a date? That you are a modern woman who can pay for her own frozen yogurt?”

Lauren grinned and put her cup next to his on the scale next to the register. “All those things are true. But also, you offered, and you make more money than I do.”

Caleb handed the cashier his credit card. “Fair enough.”

They settled into a booth with bright red seats, sitting across from each other. Lauren dug in. Caleb watched her eat for a moment before taking his first bite.

He said, “So what’s a dame like you doing in a place like that?”

“Huh?”

“What brought you to the symposium?”

“Oh. Diane encourages me to do professional development, so she’s got me on every mailing list for every organization in the city relating to pets or animal rescues or veterinary anything. When I got the invitation to this thing in the mail, Diane encouraged me to go. She thought maybe learning more about feline behavior would help me better manage the cats at the café.”

“Did you learn anything useful?”

“Yeah, the discussion of observed behaviors in feral colonies was especially interesting. I didn’t know that cat tails could tell you anything, but I’ve seen the cats at the café greet each other with their tails up all the time. If that really means they are approaching in a friendly way, that seems like good news.”

“Also that purring could be a way to lure prey into a false sense of security.”

Lauren laughed. “That I knew. And I totally believe it. I’ve been attacked by enough cats at the café to know that purring is not always a sign of contentment.”

“Attacked?”

“Nothing major. Scratches, mostly.” She held out her arm. There were a few red slashes across it, all minor.

“You ever get bitten?”

“Every now and then. Not often. We’ve got a procedure in place for when that happens, at Olivia’s suggestion. There are several full first aid kits and antibacterial ointment in the staff restroom.”

“Okay. Just curious. I get bitten every now and then, too. Usually when I’m giving cats shots.”

“Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way. I brought one of the first café cats to the clinic to get her shots, and as soon as the needle hit her skin, she turned her head and sank her teeth into my hand. My whole hand was red and puffy for week. I had to get prescription-strength antibiotic ointment.”

“Fun.”

“Yeah, not so much.”

They both laughed.

“I guess it was good you were there tonight,” Lauren said.

“You guess?”

“Something about that guy Mike rubbed me the wrong way. And I’m not sad to see you.”

“I’m not sad to see you, either.” In fact, he’d had a whole cycle of emotions once he’d spotted her. He’d been surprised to see her, but happy about it. He’d considered maybe just ducking out of the auditorium until he saw Mike, at which point his feet carried him right to her. Because he wanted her to himself. Which was not at all a fair way to view the situation.

As they ate and chatted about some of the finer points of the symposium, it occurred to Caleb that they’d crossed some other threshold, and now they were the sort of people who had casual dates to eat frozen yogurt like they were in some fantasy of the fifties. He also much preferred this to trying to hear each other in a noisy bar if they’d gone for that drink, because he quite liked listening to her.

But was that enough? He didn’t want a long-term relationship. He wasn’t sure he could trust love to last longer than a dog’s attention span. And he wasn’t sure that he and Lauren even had enough